Eunuch, do you really know these martial arts?

The cold, synthesized electronic sounds echoed in every corner of the underwater base.

Jiang Nian slumped in the submarine seat, listening to the countdown coming through his headset.

"Go!" He gritted his teeth and propped himself up. "Sea Dragon Squad, full speed ahead!"

"understand!"

The submersible's engines roared simultaneously, leaving white trails in the murky waters of the warehouse.

Outside the sealed door, the passageway was deserted.

The guards were completely removed.

"Something's not right." Hailong No. 4's voice was tense. "They gave up too easily."

“Once the self-destruct sequence is activated, the entire assembly point will become an underwater graveyard.” Jiang Nian stared at the sonar screen. “They know this better than we do.”

The submersible sped along the maintenance tunnel it had come from.

"Obstacles ahead!" Hailong VI suddenly shouted.

At the end of the passage, a heavy alloy gate is slowly descending!

"Charge!" Jiang Nian's pupils contracted.

"It's too thick! We can't break through it!"

"Use the marrow ore sample!"

Jiang Nian took out the shielding container from his pocket. "Old Qin, can the energy of these samples detonate?"

"Are you crazy?!" Old Qin exclaimed from the base. "Detonating the marrow ore in a confined space will kill us all!"

“Then let’s detonate it in a controlled manner.” Jiang Nian stuffed the container into the submarine’s external launch tube. “Use the smallest sample to blast open a crack.”

"Six, launch the standard torpedo!"

"understand!"

The Hailong VI submersible launched a slender torpedo.

"boom!"

The shockwave from the explosion echoed through the narrow passage, causing the submarine to shake violently.

However, the gate only dented, and the descent speed did not decrease at all.

"No!" Hailong No. 4 exclaimed urgently, "It's special armor!"

"Old Qin!" Jiang Nian roared.

Old Qin's voice almost cracked, "Use sample number three! Set the container to 5% output power, directional explosion mode! But remember, you only have one chance!"

Jiang Nian operates quickly.

A small control panel popped up on the side of the shielding container, and he quickly set it up according to the parameters transmitted by Qin Lao.

"Setup complete".

"emission!"

The container was ejected from the launch tube and precisely adhered to the bottom gap of the first gate.

"Everyone, close your eyes!"

Blinding blue light exploded in the passageway.

After a few seconds, the light dissipated.

The gate was smelted, leaving an irregular hole two meters in diameter. The alloy at the edges was still glowing red, dripping with hot molten metal.

"Charge!" Jiang Nian was the first to react.

Four underwater vehicles filed through the hole.

The second gate is just 30 meters ahead.

"One more time!" Jiang Nian pulled out another sample container.

"No!" Old Qin shouted urgently, "Continuous detonation will trigger harmonic resonance! The entire passage could collapse!"

"What should I do?"

"Use laser cutting!" Hailong-5's voice interrupted. "My submersible still has 40% power left, enough for one cut!"

"Your underwater vehicle is half destroyed!"

"It's better than dying here!"

The No. 5 submersible accelerated forward, came to an abrupt stop in front of the second gate, and extended its damaged laser cutting arm.

The incandescent white beam of light shone again.

The alloy began to melt.

But the speed is too slow.

"Number four, number six, crash into me!" Jiang Nian suddenly ordered.

"what?"

"Use the submarine to hold the gate open! Buy time for Unit 5!"

"Are you crazy? The force of the gate descending is enough to crush the submarine into a pancake!"

"Let it crush us!" Jiang Nian steered the Night Shadow towards the lower edge of the gate. "It's better than being buried alive!"

Hailong No. 4 and No. 6 hesitated for only half a second before rushing forward.

The three underwater vehicles are arranged in a triangle at the bottom edge of the gate.

The sound of metal deforming is teeth-grinding.

"We've held on!" the pilot of Hailong No. 4 gritted his teeth. "But we can't hold on much longer! No. 5, hurry!"

The hydraulic system of the gate emitted an even louder roar, and the descent pressure suddenly increased.

The Nightshade's hull began to deform, and its external armor plates cracked.

"Warning: Structural integrity has dropped to 40 percent." The system notification sounded indifferently.

"Jiang Nian!" Yang Zhan roared from the base, "Abandon ship! Now!"

"Wait a little longer..." Jiang Nian stared at the cutting progress bar.

"You're going to die!"

The Hailong VI submarine let out a groan of unbearable strain as its port side armor completely blew off.

"100% complete! Cutting complete!"

An irregular gap was melted into the bottom of the gate, just large enough for the submarine to pass through.

"Retreat!" Jiang Nian was the first to release the thrust.

The three underwater vehicles retreated almost simultaneously.

The gate, now unsupported, crashed down with a loud thud at the bottom of the passage.

The third gate is just fifty meters ahead.

"Full speed! Crash through!" Jiang Nian's eyes were bloodshot.

"The Nightshade is severely damaged; we can't ram it!"

"Then let's crash together!"

Four submarines were arranged in a cone formation, with their engines pushed to their maximum power.

The world is spinning.

Jiang Nian felt as if she had been thrown into a washing machine, and the world was spinning around her.

The collision alarms went off in unison.

But what he heard was the sound of alloy tearing.

"Success!" Hailong No. 4's voice came out intermittently, "The third gate has been broken open."

Through the cracked observation window, Jiang Nian could see the open sea outside.

They broke through.

"Night Shadow has 20% remaining, Number Four has 35% remaining, Number Five... Number Five has lost power."

The Hailong-5 submersible hovered silently in the water, black smoke billowing from its tail, and water was leaking in several places in its hull.

"Abandon ship." Pilot No. 5's voice was calm. "Pick me up, set the submersible to self-destruct."

"No!" Hailong VI exclaimed urgently, "I'll drag you away!"

"I can't drag it anymore." Number Five smiled bitterly. "My underwater vehicle weighs twenty-three tons. With your remaining power dragging me, neither of us can get away."

There was a moment of silence on the channel.

"Excuting an order."

"……Yes."

The Hailong VI extended its robotic arm and pulled the No. 5 pilot out of the damaged hull and into its own submersible.

The remaining three submarines sped off towards the rendezvous point.

On the sonar screen, the huge hemispherical structure was slowly collapsing.

Starting from the inside, one compartment after another exploded, and the shockwaves churned the seawater.

"The self-destruct sequence has entered its final stage," Qin reported. "In three minutes, the core reactor will overload and explode. The explosive yield is equivalent to 500 tons of TNT."

"Safe distance?"

"At least five nautical miles."

Jiang Nian glanced at the speed and distance.

"That's too late."

They are now only two nautical miles from the center of the assembly point, and at their current speed, they will be able to travel at most four nautical miles in three minutes.

"We're still one nautical mile away." Yang Zhan suddenly spoke up. "Use the hydrothermal vents as cover. When the shockwave from the explosion propagates underwater, it will refract when it encounters a temperature gradient. If you can hide behind the heat flow, you can reduce the impact by seventy percent."

"But hydrothermal vents are inherently dangerous!" Dr. Xu said urgently.

"Better than being blown up directly." Jiang Nian had already changed course. "Where's the nearest thrusters?"

"Eight hundred meters to the northeast." Hailong-4 quickly located the position, "but that nozzle is in an active phase, with a surface temperature exceeding two hundred and fifty degrees."

"enough."

Three submersibles rushed toward the hydrothermal vent area.

Behind them, the collapse of the assembly point became increasingly violent.

The massive metal structure detached from the main body and sank into the deep sea, kicking up large amounts of mud and sand.

"Core reactor temperature critical!" Old Qin's voice was tense. "Ninety seconds left!"

"The nozzle has arrived!"

"Get behind the nozzle!" Jiang Nian maneuvered the Night Shadow to circle around to the side of the nozzle.

The temperature here is still high, but much better than with a direct jet stream.

The three submersibles hulled close to the seabed, concealing themselves behind the rocks protruding from the vent.

"Sixty seconds!"

Jiang Nian could feel that even through the submarine's armor, the water temperature outside was rising rapidly.

The external sensor readings have jumped to 180 degrees and are still climbing.

"The heat-resistant coating can't hold up any longer," Hailong-4 reported. "The temperature inside the cabin is starting to rise."

"Shut down all non-essential systems to conserve energy," Jiang Nian ordered. "Prepare for the impact."

"Thirty seconds!"

Time has never seemed to slow down.

Even with the cover of the hydrothermal vents, the submersible was tossed about like a leaf in a storm.

Jiang Nian gripped the control stick tightly, feeling as if his internal organs were about to be shattered.

“Report the situation…” he said, coughing, his mouth tasting of blood.

"Night Shadow suffers 60% external damage, 8% power remaining," the system notification reads.

"Number four? Number six?"

"I'm still alive," Hailong No. 4 said weakly. "The submersible is destroyed, but the hull is intact."

"What about number six?"

no respond.

"Number Six! Answer!"

"Here it is." Number Six's voice finally rang out, accompanied by a painful gasp, "Several ribs...broken...but he won't die."

Jiang Nian breathed a sigh of relief.

He turned on the sonar.

The original location of the assembly point is now just a huge crater, with its edges slowly collapsing.

The explosion blasted a depression in the seabed that was nearly one kilometer in diameter and more than three hundred meters deep at its center.

"Did we succeed?" Hailong No. 4 murmured.

"Not yet." Jiang Nian stared at the edge of the sonar screen.

There, several new red dots are rapidly approaching.

"It's the organization's rescue team," Qin Lao's voice came through. "The explosion was so loud that they've called in all the surrounding units. At least six combat vehicles are closing in from three directions."

"In our current state, we can't win," Hailong VI said frankly.

"Then let's run." Jiang Nian pulled up the navigation map. "Let's dive into the deep-sea trench and use the terrain to escape."

"Insufficient power."

“Use the ocean currents,” Yang Zhan interjected. “The explosion has just happened, and the surrounding seawater is experiencing violent convection. Find the current flowing towards the deep-sea trench and follow it; that will save 80 percent of the power.”

Old Qin acted quickly, "Found it! 300 meters below you, there is an undercurrent flowing southeast at a speed of three knots, which leads directly to the Devil's Trench."

"Devil's Trench?" Hailong IV's voice changed. "The water there is over 3,000 meters deep, and our submersible's pressure tolerance limit is only 1,500 meters!"

"Dive to 1,200 meters and follow the edge of the trench. There's no need to go to the bottom." Jiang Nian had already started the Night Shadow's descent. "The organization's vehicles may not have better pressure resistance than ours."

"This is a gamble."

"We've been betting all along."

Three wrecked underwater vehicles began to descend.

Behind us, the red dots were getting closer and closer.

"They're closing the five-nautical-mile mark," Hailong-4 reported. "They're faster than us."

"Use decoy flares," Jiang Nian said. "Fire out all the remaining decoy flares to create a group of false targets."

"understand!"

Dozens of acoustic decoys were launched and exploded in the seawater, creating a noisy sonar interference zone.

The red dot in pursuit paused noticeably, splitting off half to track the false target.

But the remaining three ships continued to pursue relentlessly.

"We can't shake them off." Hailong VI gritted his teeth.

"Then let's fire." Jiang Nian pulled up the weapons inventory. "How much ammunition do we have left?"

"The Nightshade has two light torpedoes left, number four has one, and number six... the weapon system of number six is ​​completely destroyed."

“Three torpedoes to take out three vehicles,” Jiang Nian calculated. “We need to get close to ensure a hit.”

"Are you crazy? In our current state, getting close is tantamount to suicide!"

"Then do you have a better idea?"

Silence fell over the channel.

"Follow my orders." Jiang Nian took a deep breath. "Number Four and Number Six, you continue towards the trench without stopping. I'll stay behind to cover the rear."

"no!"

“This is an order.” Jiang Nian’s voice turned cold. “My Night Shadow is the most damaged and the slowest. It will be caught up sooner or later. Rather than all of us die together, I’d rather hold them off.”

"Excuting an order."

The two submarines accelerated forward.

The Night Shadow slowly turned to face the three red dots that were pursuing it.

The three red dots are getting closer and closer.

The outline is already visible.

It is a standard patrol model, but with additional weapon modules added, clearly an emergency-modified pursuit model.

"bring it on."

The Nightshade's engines roared one last time as it charged toward the enemy.

The first patrol vehicle clearly hadn't expected him to charge ahead and quickly turned to evade him.

But it's too late.

Jiang Nian pressed the launch button.

The last lightweight torpedo was fired.

The first patrol vehicle was hit directly in the middle, broke in two, and slowly sank.

But the other two ships had already reacted.

The energy weapon began charging.

Jiang Nian pushed the control stick hard, and the Night Shadow tilted at an almost impossible angle, dodging the first salvo.

But the maneuvering caused the already fragile cabin to groan under the strain.

Jiang Nian stared at the remaining two vehicles.

They are adjusting their formation, one on the left and one on the right, preparing to flank.

Jiang Nian looked at the red warning light flashing on the dashboard and suddenly smiled.

"In the end, a martial artist relies not on techniques, but on instinct."

It's now!

Jiang Nian suddenly restarted the engine!

"He's gone mad!" exclaimed the driver of the vehicle on the right.

But it was too late to intercept them.

The Nightshade's wrecked hull slammed violently into the side of the port vehicle.

Jiang Nian was ejected just before the impact.

The single-person escape pod was launched from the top of the Nightshade and, propelled by the shockwave of the explosion, shot into the deep sea like a bullet.

He looked back through the observation window.

The Night Shadow and the patrol vehicle had been turned into a fireball.

Another patrol vehicle is scrambling to avoid debris from the explosion.

His escape pod, propelled by the explosion, was hurtling towards the trench at full speed.

"Jiang Nian! Report the situation!" Bai Yongxu's voice boomed in the earpiece.

"Still alive..." Jiang Nian coughed up blood. "The Night Shadow is gone, but two ships were destroyed. There's one left, but they shouldn't be able to catch up for the time being." (End of Chapter)